Sanders became interested in politics at an early age: "A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932. He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important."[20][21][22][nb 1] In the 1940s, many of Sanders' relatives in German-occupied Poland were killed in the Holocaust, including his father's half-brother, Bernie's uncle Abraham Schnützer, who was killed in 1942.[11][17][25][26][27]

Sanders lived on East 26th Street in Midwood, Brooklyn.[28] He attended elementary school at P.S. 197 in Brooklyn, where he won a borough championship on the basketball team.[29][30] He attended Hebrew school in the afternoons, and celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1954.[26] Sanders's older brother, Larry, said that during their childhood, the family never lacked for food or clothing, but major purchases, "like curtains or a rug," were difficult to afford.[31]

Sanders attended James Madison High School, also in Brooklyn, where he was captain of the track team and took third place in the New York City indoor one-mile race.[29] In high school, Sanders lost his first election, finishing last out of three candidates for the student body presidency. Not long after his high school graduation, his mother died at the age of 46;[17][26] his father died a few years later on August 4, 1962, at the age of 57.[13]

Sanders studied at Brooklyn College for a year in 1959–60[32] before transferring to the University of Chicago and graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1964.[32] He has described himself as a mediocre college student because the classroom was "boring and irrelevant," while the community provided his most significant learning.[33]

Early career

Political activism

While at the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People's Socialist League (the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America),[34] and was active in the Civil Rights Movement as a student organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[25][35] Under Sanders's chairmanship, the university chapter of CORE merged with the university chapter of SNCC.[36] In January 1962, Sanders led a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Wells Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders said at the protest. Sanders and 32 other students then entered the building and camped outside the president's office, performing the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history.[37][38] After weeks of sit-ins, Beadle and the university formed a commission to investigate discrimination.[39]Joan Mahoney, a member of the University of Chicago CORE chapter at the time and a fellow participant in the sit-ins, described Sanders in a 2016 interview as "...a swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn't terribly charismatic. One of his strengths, though, was his ability to work with a wide group of people, even those he didn't agree with".[40] Sanders once spent a day putting up fliers protesting against police brutality, only to eventually notice that a Chicago police car was shadowing him and taking them all down.[41]

Professional history

After graduating from college, Sanders returned to New York City, where he initially worked at a variety of jobs, including Head Start teacher, psychiatric aide, and carpenter.[33] In 1968, Sanders moved to Vermont because he had been "captivated by rural life." After his arrival there he worked as a carpenter,[34] filmmaker, and writer[49] who created and sold "radical film strips" and other educational materials to schools.[50] He also wrote several articles for the alternative publication The Vermont Freeman.[51]

Liberty Union campaigns

Sanders began his electoral political career in 1971 as a member of the Liberty Union Party, which originated in the anti-war movement and the People's Party. He ran as the Liberty Union candidate for governor of Vermont in 1972 and 1976 and as a candidate for U.S. senator in 1972 and 1974.[52] In the 1974 senatorial race, Sanders finished third (5,901 votes; 4.1%), behind 33-year-old Chittenden County State's Attorney Patrick Leahy (D, VI; 70,629 votes; 49.4%) and two-term incumbent U.S. Representative Dick Mallary (R; 66,223 votes; 46.3%).[53][54]

The 1976 campaign proved to be the zenith of Liberty Union's influence, with Sanders collecting 11,000 votes for governor and the party. This forced the races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state to be decided by the state legislature when its vote total prevented either the Republican or Democratic candidates for those offices from garnering a majority of votes.[55] The campaign drained the finances and energy of the Liberty Union, however, and in October 1977, less than a year after the conclusion of the 1976 campaign, Sanders and the Liberty Union candidate for attorney general, Nancy Kaufman, announced their retirement from the party.[55]

Following his resignation from the Liberty Union Party in 1977, Sanders worked as a writer and the director of the nonprofit American People's Historical Society (APHS).[56] While with the APHS, he made a 30-minute documentary about American Socialist leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs.[34][57]

Campaigns

The 39-year-old Sanders ran against incumbent Democratic mayor Gordon "Gordie" Paquette, a five-term mayor who had served as a member of the Burlington City Council for 13 years before that, building extensive community ties and a willingness to cooperate with Republican leaders in controlling appointments to various commissions. Republicans had found Paquette so unobjectionable that they failed to field a candidate in the March 1981 race against him, leaving Sanders as his principal opponent. Sanders's effort was further aided by the decision of the candidate of the Citizens Party, Greg Guma, to exit the race so as not to split the progressive vote. Two other candidates in the race, independents Richard Bove and Joe McGrath, proved to be essentially non-factors in the campaign, with the battle coming down to Paquette and Sanders.[55]

Sanders castigated the pro-development incumbent as an ally of prominent shopping center developer Antonio Pomerleau, while Paquette warned of ruin for Burlington if Sanders was elected. The Sanders campaign was bolstered by a wave of optimistic volunteers as well as by a series of endorsements from university professors, social welfare agencies, and the police union. The final result came as a shock to the local political establishment, with the maverick Sanders winning by just 10 votes.[55]

Sanders was reelected three times, defeating both Democratic and Republican candidates. He received 53% of the vote in 1983 and 55% in 1985.[59] In his final run for mayor in 1987, Sanders defeated Paul Lafayette, a Democrat endorsed by both major parties.[60] In 1986, Sanders unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Governor Madeleine Kunin (D) in her run for reelection. Running as an independent, Sanders finished third with 14.4% of the vote. Kunin won with 47%, followed by Lt. Governor Peter P. Smith (R) with 38%.

Administration

During his mayoralty, Sanders called himself a socialist and was so described in the press.[62][63] During his first term, his supporters, including the first Citizens Party City Councilor Terry Bouricius, formed the Progressive Coalition, the forerunner of the Vermont Progressive Party.[64] The Progressives never held more than six seats on the 13-member city council, but they had enough to keep the council from overriding Sanders's vetoes. Under Sanders, Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing.[65]

During the 1980s, Sanders was a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.[66] In 1985, Burlington City Hall hosted a foreign policy speech by Noam Chomsky. In his introduction, Sanders praised Chomsky as "a very vocal and important voice in the wilderness of intellectual life in America" and said he was "delighted to welcome a person who I think we're all very proud of."[67][68]

Sanders's administration balanced the city budget and drew a minor league baseball team, the Vermont Reds, then the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, to Burlington.[17] Under his leadership, Burlington sued the local television cable franchise, winning reduced rates for customers.[17]

As mayor, Sanders led extensive downtown revitalization projects. One of his primary achievements was the improvement of Burlington's Lake Champlain waterfront.[17] In 1981, Sanders campaigned against the unpopular plans by Burlington developer Tony Pomerleau to convert the then-industrial[69] waterfront property owned by the Central Vermont Railway into expensive condominiums, hotels, and offices.[70] Sanders ran under the slogan "Burlington is not for sale" and successfully supported a plan that redeveloped the waterfront area into a mixed-use district featuring housing, parks, and public space.[70] Today, the waterfront area includes many parks and miles of public beach and bike paths, a boathouse, and a science center.[70]

Elections

In 1988, incumbent Republican Congressman Jim Jeffords decided to run for the U.S. Senate, vacating the House seat representing Vermont's at-large congressional district. Former Lieutenant GovernorPeter P. Smith (R) won the House election with a plurality, securing 41% of the vote. Sanders, who ran as an independent, placed second with 38% of the vote, while Democratic State Representative Paul N. Poirier placed third with 19% of the vote.[80] Two years later, Sanders ran for the seat again and defeated the incumbent Smith by a margin of 56% to 39%.[81]

Votes

In 1993, Sanders voted against the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks when buying guns and imposed a waiting period on firearm purchasers in the United States; the bill passed by a vote of 238–187.[84][85]

In 1994, Sanders voted in favor of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Sanders said he voted for the bill "because it included the Violence Against Women Act and the ban on certain assault weapons". He was nevertheless extremely critical of the other parts of the bill.[86][87] Though he acknowledged that "clearly, there are some people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them", he maintained in his intervention before the House that the government's ill-thought policies played a large part in "dooming tens of millions of young people to a future of bitterness, misery, hopelessness, drugs, crime, and violence". In this same intervention, he argued that the repressive policies introduced by the bill were not addressing the causes of violence, stating that "we can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails".[88]

In 2005, he voted for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.[89] The act's purpose was to prevent firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for negligence when crimes have been committed with their products. In 2015, Sanders defended his vote, saying: "If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and the murderer kills somebody with a gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer."[90]

Sanders voted against the resolutions authorizing the use of force against Iraq in 1991 and 2002, and opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He voted for the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists[91] that has been cited as the legal justification for controversial military actions since the September 11 attacks.[92] Sanders voted for a non-binding resolution expressing support for troops at the outset of the invasion of Iraq, but gave a floor speech criticizing the partisan nature of the vote and the George W. Bush administration's actions in the run-up to the war. Regarding the investigation of what turned out to be a leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity by a State Department official, Sanders stated: "The revelation that the President authorized the release of classified information in order to discredit an Iraq war critic should tell every member of Congress that the time is now for a serious investigation of how we got into the war in Iraq and why Congress can no longer act as a rubber stamp for the President."[93]

Positions on legislation

Sanders was a consistent critic of the Patriot Act.[95] As a member of Congress, he voted against the original Patriot Act legislation.[96] After its 357-to-66 passage in the House, Sanders sponsored and voted for several subsequent amendments and acts attempting to curtail its effects,[97] and voted against each re-authorization.[98] In June 2005, Sanders proposed an amendment to limit Patriot Act provisions that allow the government to obtain individuals' library and book-buying records. The amendment passed the House by a bipartisan majority, but was removed on November 4 of that year in House–Senate negotiations and never became law.[99]

In March 2006, after a series of resolutions passed in various Vermont towns calling for him to bring articles of impeachment against George W. Bush, Sanders stated that it would be "impractical to talk about impeachment" with Republicans in control of the House and Senate.[100] Still, Sanders made no secret of his opposition to the Bush Administration, which he regularly criticized for its cuts to social programs.[101][102][103]

Sanders was a vocal critic of Federal Reserve ChairAlan Greenspan; in June 2003, during a question-and-answer discussion with the then-Chairman, Sanders told Greenspan that he was concerned that Greenspan was "way out of touch" and "that you see your major function in your position as the need to represent the wealthy and large corporations".[104][105] In October 2008, after Sanders had been elected to the Senate, Greenspan admitted to Congress that his economic ideology regarding risky mortgage loans was flawed.[106][107] In 1998, Sanders voted and advocated against rolling back the Glass–Steagall Legislation provisions that kept investment banks and commercial banks separate entities.[108]

Sanders entered the race for the U.S. Senate on April 21, 2005, after Senator Jim Jeffords announced that he would not seek a fourth term. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders, a critical move as it meant that no Democrat running against Sanders could expect to receive financial help from the party. Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority LeaderHarry Reid of Nevada and Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who "votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."[109] Then-Senator Barack Obama also campaigned for Sanders in Vermont in March 2006.[110] Sanders entered into an agreement with the Democratic Party, much as he had as a congressman, to be listed in their primary but to decline the nomination should he win, which he did.[111][112]

In the most expensive political campaign in Vermont's history,[113] Sanders defeated businessman Rich Tarrant by an approximately 2-to-1 margin. Many national media outlets projected Sanders as the winner just after the polls closed, before any returns came in. He was reelected in 2012 with 71% of the vote.[114]

Sanders was only the third senator from Vermont to caucus with the Democrats, after Jeffords and Leahy. His caucusing with the Democrats gave them a 51–49 majority in the Senate during the 110th Congress in 2007–08. The Democrats needed 51 seats to control the Senate because Vice PresidentDick Cheney would have broken any tie in favor of the Republicans.[115]

As an independent, Sanders worked out a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership in which he agreed to vote with the Democrats on all procedural matters, except with permission from Democratic WhipDick Durbin (a request that is rarely made or granted). In return, he was allowed to keep his seniority and received the committee seats that would have been available to him as a Democrat; in 2013–14, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs (during the Veterans Health Administration scandal).[116][117] Sanders was free to vote as he pleased on policy matters, but almost always voted with the Democrats.[citation needed]

Supreme Court

On March 17, 2016, Sanders said he would support Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court, though he added, "there are some more progressive judges out there."[125]

Sanders opposed Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Court, saying that Gorsuch had "refused to answer legitimate questions."[126] Sanders also objected to the possibility of Senate Republicans using the nuclear option to "choke off debate and ram the nomination through the Senate."[126]

Sanders announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president on April 30, 2015,[130][131][132] and his campaign was officially launched on May 26, 2015, in Burlington.[131] In his announcement, Sanders said, "I don't believe that the men and women who defended American democracy fought to create a situation where billionaires own the political process," and made this a central idea throughout his campaign.[130][131] Senator Elizabeth Warren welcomed Sanders's entry into the race, saying, "I'm glad to see him get out there and give his version of what leadership in this country should be," but never endorsed him.[133][134] Initially considered a long shot, Sanders won 23 primaries and caucuses and approximately 43% of pledged delegates to Clinton's 55%. His campaign was noted for its supporters' enthusiasm, as well as for his rejection of large donations from corporations, the financial industry, and any associated Super PAC. On July 12, 2016, Sanders formally endorsed Clinton in her unsuccessful general election campaign against RepublicanDonald Trump, while urging his supporters to continue the "political revolution" his campaign had begun.

Campaign methods

Unlike the other major candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC or by wealthy donors, instead focusing on small individual donations.[135] His presidential campaign raised $1.5 million within 24 hours of his official announcement.[136] At year's end the campaign had raised a total of $73 million from more than one million people making 2.5 million donations, with an average donation of $27.16.[137] The campaign reached 3.25 million donations by the end of January 2016, raising $20 million in that month alone.[138]

Sanders used social media to help his campaign gain momentum,[139] posting content to online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and answering questions on Reddit. He gained a large grassroots organizational following online. A July 29, 2015, meetup organized online brought 100,000 supporters to more than 3,500 simultaneous events nationwide.[140]

Sanders's campaign events in June 2015 drew overflow crowds around the country, to his surprise.[141][142][143] When Hillary Clinton and Sanders made public appearances within days of each other in Des Moines, Iowa, Sanders drew larger crowds, even though he had already made numerous stops around the state and Clinton's visit was her first in 2015.[144] On July 1, 2015, Sanders's campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, drew the largest crowd of any 2016 presidential candidate to that date, with an estimated turnout of 10,000.[145][146] Over the following weeks he gained even larger crowds: 11,000 in Arizona,[147] 15,000 in Seattle,[148] and 28,000 in Portland.[149]

Party presidential debates

The 2016 Democratic Party presidential debates occurred among candidates in the campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination for the President of the United States. The DNC announced in May 2015 that there would be six debates. Critics alleged that the small number of debates and the schedule, with half of the debates on Saturday or Sunday nights, were part of the DNC's deliberate attempt to protect the front-runner, Hillary Clinton.[150] In February 2016, Clinton's and Sanders's campaigns agreed in principle to holding four more debates for a total of ten.[151] Clinton dropped out of the tenth debate, scheduled to take place just prior to the California elections, citing a need to devote her time making direct contact with voters in California. Sanders expressed disappointment that Clinton would cancel the debate "before the largest and most important primary in the presidential nominating process".[152]

Polls and news coverage

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in May found Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in a "dead heat", but the same poll found that if Sanders were the Democratic nominee, 53% of voters would support him to 39% for Trump.[153] Clinton and Trump were the least popular likely candidates in the poll's history, while Sanders received a 43% positive, 36% negative rating.[154] Polls showed that Democratic voters older than 50 preferred Clinton by a large margin but those under 50 overwhelmingly favored Sanders.[155]

Some supporters raised concerns that publications such as The New York Times minimized coverage of the Sanders campaign in favor of other candidates', especially Trump's and Clinton's.[156][157] A December 2015 report found that the three major networks – CBS, NBC, and ABC – had spent 234minutes reporting on Trump and 10minutes on Sanders, despite their similar polling results. The report noted that ABC World News Tonight had spent 81minutes on Trump and less than 1minute on Sanders during 2015.[158] In November 2016, journalist Amy Goodman noted that on March 15, Super Tuesday III, the speeches of Trump, Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz were broadcast in full. Sanders was in Phoenix, Arizona, on that date, speaking to a rally larger than any of the others, but his speech was not mentioned, let alone broadcast.[159]

Conclusion

After the final primary election, Clinton became the presumptive Democratic nominee.[160] On July 12, Sanders formally endorsed Clinton[161] but he continued to work with the Democratic National Convention organizers to implement the progressive positions he had been campaigning for. Sanders spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention on July 25, giving Clinton his full support. Some of Sanders's supporters attempted to protest Clinton's nomination and booed when Sanders called for party unity. Sanders responded, "Our job is to do two things: to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Hillary Clinton...It is easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face if we are living under a Trump presidency."[162]

Nationwide, it was possible to vote for Sanders as a write-in candidate in twelve states,[165] and exact totals of write-in votes for Sanders were published in three states: California,[166]New Hampshire,[167] and Vermont.[164] In those three states, Sanders received 111,850 write-in votes, which was approximately 15% of the write-in votes nationwide, and 0.08% of the nationwide number of votes overall.[165]

On December 19, the day that the Electoral College convened in state capitols around the country, Sanders received one electoral vote for president, from David Mulinix, a faithless elector in Hawaii who also voted for fellow progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren (instead of Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine) for vice president.[168] Two other faithless electors, David Bright in Maine and Muhammad Abdurrahman in Minnesota, attempted to cast their electoral votes for Sanders, but their votes were invalidated by their states' faithless elector laws; Bright subsequently switched his vote to Clinton as pledged, while Abdurrahman was replaced by another elector who voted for Clinton as pledged.[169][170]

Post-election approval ratings and commentary

Polling conducted in August 2011 by Public Policy Polling found that Sanders's approval rating was 67% and his disapproval rating 28%, making him then the third-most popular senator in the country.[179] Both the NAACP and the NHLA have given Sanders 100% voting scores during his tenure in the Senate.[180] In 2015 Sanders was named one of the Top 5 of The Forward 50.[181] In a November 2015 Morning Consult poll, Sanders had an approval rating of 83% among his constituents, making him the most popular senator in the country.[182] Fox News found Sanders to have the highest net favorability at +28 points of any prominent politician included in its March 2017 poll.[183] He ranked third in 2014 and first in both 2015 and 2016.[182][179][184]

In a March 2017 Fox News poll, Sanders's 61% approval rating was the highest among all politicians rated, versus 43% for Donald Trump, 47% for Mike Pence and 37% for Paul Ryan.[185] In April 2017, a nationwide Harvard-Harris Poll found Sanders had the highest favorability rating of the leading political figures included in the poll,[176] a standing confirmed by subsequent polling.[177][178]

Noam Chomsky stated in a May 2017 BBC interview that the Sanders campaign, by breaking with a century-old political system of reliance on corporate funding, was the most remarkable thing about the 2016 election.[186] Chomsky said Sanders "came from nowhere", used the "scare word 'socialist'", and "would have won the Democratic Party nomination if it hadn’t been for the shenanigans of the Obama-Clinton party managers who kept him out."[187]

Political activities

To build on momentum gained during the 2016 election campaign, Sanders and supporters founded a political action committee and a political education organization:

Brand New Congress – In April 2016, former Sanders presidential campaign staffers formed a political organization, Brand New Congress, to elect Congressional representatives in line with the campaign's political platform.[189]

Our Revolution – In August 2016, Sanders founded Our Revolution, an organization dedicated to educating voters about political issues, getting people involved in the political process, and recruiting and supporting candidates for local, state, and national office.[190][191]

Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist,[198] and progressive who admires the Nordic model of social democracy and has been a proponent of workplace democracy.[199][195][200] In November 2015, Sanders gave a speech at Georgetown University about his view of democratic socialism, including its place in the policies of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.[201][202] In defining what democratic socialism means to him, Sanders said: "I don't believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down. I do believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America, companies that create jobs here, rather than companies that are shutting down in America and increasing their profits by exploiting low-wage labor abroad."[201] Based on Sanders's positions and votes throughout his political career, Noam Chomsky and Thomas Frank have described Sanders as "a New Dealer".[6][nb 2]

Many commentators have noted the consistency of Sanders's views throughout his political career.[203][204]

Trade

Calling international trade agreements a "disaster for the American worker", Sanders voted against and has spoken for years against NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China, saying that they have resulted in American corporations moving abroad. He also strongly opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he says was "written by corporate America and the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street."[205][206]

Sanders opposes the 2017 Trump/Republican federal budget plan, calling it "a budget for the billionaire class, for Wall Street, for corporate CEOs, and for the wealthiest people in this country...nothing less than a massive transfer of wealth from working families, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor to the top 1%." [232]

Following the November 2017 revelations from the Paradise Papers and a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies which says just three people, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population, Sanders stated that "we must end global oligarchy" and that "we need, in the United States and throughout the world, a tax system which is fair, progressive and transparent."[233]

Health care

Sanders is a staunch supporter of a universal health care system, and has said, "If you are serious about real healthcare reform, the only way to go is single-payer."[210] He advocates lowering the cost of drugs that are expensive because they remain under patent for years; some drugs that cost thousands of dollars per year in the U.S. are available for hundreds, or less, in countries where they can be obtained as generics.[234] As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, Sanders has introduced legislation to reauthorize and strengthen the Older Americans Act, which supports Meals on Wheels and other programs for seniors.[235] He supported the Affordable Care Act, though he felt it didn't go far enough.[236]

In September 2017, Sanders and 15 Senate co-sponsors submitted the "Medicare for All" bill, a single-payer health care plan. The bill also covers vision and dental care, unlike Medicare. Some Republicans have called the bill "Berniecare" and "the latest Democratic push for socialized medicine and higher taxes." Sanders has responded that the Republican party has no credibility on the issue of health care after recently voting for legislation that would take health insurance away from 32 million people under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").[239]

On 12 June 2017, U.S. senators reached an agreement on legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia. The bill was opposed only by Sanders and Republican Rand Paul.[255]

Addressing Westminster College in a September 2017 speech, Sanders laid out a "progressive foreign policy" that pushes for greater international collaboration, an adherence to U.S.-led international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal framework, and the promotion of human rights and democratic ideals. He emphasized the evils associated with "outrageous" global economic inequality and climate change, and urged reining in the use of U.S. military power, saying it "must always be a last resort". Sanders also heavily criticized U.S. support for "murderous regimes" during the Cold War, such as those in Iran, Chile and El Salvador, and said that those actions continue to make the U.S. less safe.[256][257]

Democratic Party

Born into a Democratic-voting family, Sanders was first introduced to political activism when his brother Larry joined the Young Democrats of America and campaigned for Adlai Stevenson II in 1956.[258] Although elected mayor of Burlington as an independent, Sanders endorsed Democratic presidential candidates Walter Mondale in 1984 and Jesse Jackson in 1988. His endorsement of Mondale was lukewarm (telling reporters that "if you go around saying that Mondale would be a great president, you would be a liar and a hypocrite"), but he supported Jackson enthusiastically.[259]The Washington Post reported that the Jackson campaign helped inspire Sanders to work more closely with the Democratic Party.[259][48]

Once elected to the House of Representatives, Sanders joined the Democratic caucus, though some conservative southern Democrats initially barred him from the caucus as they believed that allowing a self-described socialist to join it would harm their electoral prospects.[48] He soon came to work constructively with Democrats, voting with the party more than 90 percent of the time during his tenure in the House and Senate.[48]

Starting in November 2015, in connection with his presidential campaign, Sanders's announcements suggested that not only was he running as a Democrat, but that he would run as a Democrat in future elections.[260][261][262] When challenged by Clinton about his party commitment, he said, "Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination."[263] During the campaign, news sources often referred to him as a Democrat.[264][265][266] Since he remained a senator, elected as an independent, the United States Senate website continued to refer to Sanders as an independent during the campaign and upon his return to the Senate.[267] He confirmed at the end of the campaign that he remained an independent in the senate for the balance of his term, since that was how he was elected.[268]

Sanders advocated that, following Trump's victory in the 2016 elections, the Democratic Party undergo a "series of reforms" and that it had to "break loose from its corporate establishment ties and, once again, become a grass-roots party of working people, the elderly and the poor."[269]

Sanders drew parallels between his campaign and that of the Labour Party in the 2017 UK general election.[270][271] He wrote in The New York Times that "the British elections should be a lesson for the Democratic Party" and urged the Democrats to stop holding on to an "overly cautious, centrist ideology", arguing that "momentum shifted to Labour after it released a very progressive manifesto that generated much enthusiasm among young people and workers".[272][273] He had earlier praised Jeremy Corbyn's stance on class issues.[274]

In October 2017, Sanders stated that he would run for reelection as an independent in 2018 despite pressure to run as a Democrat.[275]

Critiques of the Trump administration

Sanders has criticized President Trump for appointing multiple billionaires to his cabinet.[276] He criticized Trump's choice to prioritize job creation over climate change, noting the scientifically reported effect of human activity on the environment, which Trump has called a hoax.[277] He called for caution on the Syrian Civil War, noting that "it's easier to get into a war than out of one."[278] Sanders has promised to defeat "Trump and Trumpism and the Republican right-wing ideology".[279]

Sanders gave an online reply to Trump's January 2018 State of the Union address in which he called Trump "compulsively dishonest" and criticized him for initiating "a looming immigration crisis" by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He voiced concern about Trump's failure to mention the finding that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election and "will likely interfere in the 2018 midterms we will be holding ... Unless you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin."[280]

Personal life

In 1963, Sanders and Deborah Shiling, whom he met in college, volunteered for several months on the Israeli kibbutzSha'ar HaAmakim. They married in 1964 and bought a summer home in Vermont; they had no children and divorced in 1966.[34][281][282] Sanders's son, Levi Sanders, was born in 1969 to girlfriend Susan Campbell Mott.[33] In 1988, Sanders married Jane O'Meara Driscoll (née Mary Jane O'Meara), who later became president of Burlington College, in Burlington, Vermont.[283] The day after their wedding, the couple visited the Soviet Union as part of an official delegation in his capacity as mayor.[284][285] Sanders considers Jane's three children — Dave Driscoll (born 1975), Carina Driscoll (born 1974), and Heather Titus (née Driscoll; 1971) — to be his own.[34][286] He also has seven grandchildren.[287]

In December 1987, during his tenure as mayor, Sanders recorded a folk album titled We Shall Overcome with 30 Vermont musicians. As Sanders was not skilled at singing, he performed his vocals in a talking blues style.[288][289] Sanders appeared in a cameo role in the 1988 comedy-drama film Sweet Hearts Dance, playing a man who distributes candy to young trick-or-treaters.[290] In 1999, he acted in the film My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, playing the role of Rabbi Manny Shevitz. In this role he mourned the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles, reflecting Sanders's own upbringing in Brooklyn.[291] On February 6, 2016, Sanders was a guest star alongside Larry David on Saturday Night Live, playing a Polish immigrant on a steamship that was sinking near the Statue of Liberty.[292]

After complaints made in 2016 by Donald Trump's Vermont campaign chairman, the FBI launched an investigation into Sanders's wife Jane's involvement in a bank loan for Burlington College when she was its president.[301][302][303][304]The Washington Post reported on June 25, 2017, that Sanders himself is not under FBI investigation.[305] Both Sanders and his wife have retained prominent counsel during the investigation.[304][303]

After receiving nearly $900,000 in royalty advances for his recently published books, Sanders reported earnings of just over $1 million in 2016.[306]

Sanders rarely speaks about religion.[308] He describes himself as "not particularly religious"[21] and "not actively involved" with organized religion.[308] A press package issued by his office states "Religion: Jewish".[317] He has said he believes in God, though not necessarily in a traditional manner: "I think everyone believes in God in their own ways," he said. "To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together."[308][318] In October 2015, on the late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel asked Bernie, "You say you are culturally Jewish and you don't feel religious; do you believe in God and do you think that's important to the people of the United States?" Sanders replied:[319]

I am who I am, and what I believe in and what my spirituality is about is that we're all in this together. That I think it is not a good thing to believe as human beings we can turn our backs on the suffering of other people ... and this is not Judaism, this is what Pope Francis is talking about, that we can't just worship billionaires and the making of more and more money. Life is more than that.

In 2016, he stated he had "very strong religious and spiritual feelings" and explained, "My spirituality is that we are all in this together and that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me."[320]

Sanders does not regularly attend synagogue, and he works on Rosh Hashanah, a day when Jews typically take a holiday from work. He has attended yahrzeit observances in memory of the deceased, for the father of a friend, and he attended a Tashlikh, an atonement ceremony, with the mayor of Lynchburg on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah in 2015.[307] According to Sanders's close friend Richard Sugarman, a professor of religious studies at the University of Vermont, Sanders's Jewish identity is "certainly more ethnic and cultural than religious".[321]Deborah Dash Moore, a Judaic scholar at the University of Michigan, has said that Sanders has a particular type of "ethnic Jewishness" that is somewhat old-fashioned.[322] Sanders's wife is Roman Catholic, and he has frequently expressed admiration for Pope Francis, saying that "the leader of the Catholic Church is raising profound issues. It is important that we listen to what he has said." Sanders has said he feels "very close" to Francis's economic teachings, describing him as "incredibly smart and brave".[16][323][324] In April 2016, Sanders accepted an invitation from Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, an aide close to the pope, to speak at a Vatican conference on economic and environmental issues. While at the Vatican, Sanders met briefly with the pontiff.[325][326]

Notes

^Hitler lost the election for the presidency of Germany on March 13, 1932, when Hindenburg received 49.6 percent of the vote to Hitler's 30.1 percent.[23] But the Nazi Party, led by Hitler, won a plurality in the Reichstag, Germany's lower house of parliament, in July 1932, and retained its status as the largest party thereafter.[24]

^ abChomsky, Noam (2016-01-29). "Noam Chomsky on Clinton vs Sanders". UpFront (Interview). Interview with Mehdi Hasan. Boston, MA: Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 2016-03-17. He's basically a New Dealer. Now, in the current American political spectrum, to be a New Dealer is to be way out on the left. Eisenhower, for example, who said anyone who questions the New Deal doesn't belong in the political system, would be regarded as a raving leftist. So Bernie Sanders is a decent, honest New Dealer. I agree with him on a lot of things, not on other things. I think in our system of mainly bought elections he doesn't have much of a chance, but if he were elected, I think that, of the current candidates, I think he'd be the one who would have, from my point of view, the best policies."

^"Sanders, Bernard (1941 – )". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Office of the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives' Office of History and Preservation and the Office of the Historian of the United States Senate. Retrieved February 18, 2016.

^ abcFeldmann, Linda (June 11, 2015). "Bernie Sanders: 'I'm Proud to be Jewish'". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved June 13, 2015. 'I'm proud to be Jewish,' the Independent from Vermont – and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination – responded Thursday at a press breakfast hosted by the Monitor. Though, he added, 'I'm not particularly religious.' As a child, Sanders said, being Jewish taught him 'in a very deep way what politics is about. A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932,' the senator said. 'He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.'

^"Vermont Town Votes to Impeach President". Associated Press. March 8, 2006. Retrieved July 19, 2015. Sanders said in a statement that although the Bush administration 'has been a disaster for our country, and a number of actions that he has taken may very well not have been legal,' given the reality that the Republicans control the House and the Senate, 'it would be impractical to talk about impeachment.'

^Krieg, Gregory (July 9, 2015). "Watch Young Senator Barack Obama Campaign for Bernie Sanders in 2006". mic.com. Retrieved July 20, 2015. Back in March 2006, the future president traveled to Vermont to headline a rally and fundraiser for then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, an independent running for Senate, and Pete Welch, a Democrat seeking election to Sanders's House seat.

^Nichols, John (May 26, 2015). "'Don't Underestimate Me': Bernie Sanders Knows a Thing or Two About Winning". The Nation. Retrieved July 20, 2015. When Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, a Republican who turned independent in his last term, announced that he was stepping down in 2006, Sanders jumped into a race that a number of Democrats would have liked to run. He won the Democratic primary and then declined the nomination, mounting an audacious independent run that was not supposed to be easy.

^Burleigh, Nina (October 25, 2011). "Bernie Sanders' war on the banks". Salon. Retrieved July 19, 2015. A long speech such as this is commonly known as a filibuster, but because it did not block action, it was not technically a filibuster under Senate rules.

^Harper, Jennifer (August 18, 2016). "Bernie Sanders: Still percolating". The Washington Times. Retrieved August 19, 2016. Election days come and go, but the struggle for economic, social, racial and environmental justice must continue. We have the guts and the energy to take on the special interests, win critical battles on the most important issues of our time, and redefine what's possible in this country. Now it's time for all of us to get to work.

^Powell, Michael (November 6, 2006). "Exceedingly Social But Doesn't Like Parties". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 26, 2012. He knows what the corporate media might do with his answer, but whatever... 'Yeah. I wouldn't deny it. Not for one second. I'm a democratic socialist.'

Ben Schreckinger and Jonathan Topaz (July 6, 2015). The socialist surge. Politico. Retrieved August 18, 2015. Sanders in 1976: "I believe that, in the long run, major industries in this state and nation should be publicly owned and controlled by the workers themselves."

^Totten, Shay (January 15, 2007). "Sanders to push global warming legislation in Senate". Vermont Guardian. Archived from the original on May 8, 2015. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, said Monday he was making good on at least one of a handful of campaign promises – introducing a bill designed to cut U.S. contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade. ... Sanders added that construction of new power plants is "extraordinarily expensive" and he would prefer to see federal funding support used to expand the development of sustainable energy, as well as biofuels.

^Drew Schwartz (October 29, 2015). "Bernie Sanders Wants to Abolish the Death Penalty". Vice. Retrieved August 3, 2016. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for an end to the death penalty on Thursday, laying out his case in a Senate floor speech just one day after Hillary Clinton—the party's 2016 frontrunner and Sanders' main rival for the nomination—said she was opposed to abolishing the practice.

^Blomquist, Dan and Way, Robert. "Bernie Sanders files for Democratic ballot in N.H. primary", The Boston Globe (November 5, 2015): "When a reporter asked Sanders his party allegiance after he filed, Sanders responded, 'I'm a Democrat.' He then called on Buckley, the Democratic chairman, who confirmed the senator's party allegiance. Sanders added that he would run as a Democrat in any future elections."

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